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“What do you wish you did differently?” Hansel asks me.
I hesitate. There’s so much. “I’m not sure. If I say the cave-in, would this world have survived?”
“What do you mean?”
“Entropa. The Interns saved the world from Entropa. If I hadn’t caused the accident, would he have won?”
Hansel pauses. “Probably.”
“Yeah.” I sigh. “Me being a better person…may kill more people. Ironic, huh?” I laugh.
“You were great post-Wish,” Hansel says gently.
“I know, I know. So, without ending the world, I wish I was a little nicer. Maybe I didn’t try to kill the Interns. Maybe I didn’t brainwash my friends. Maybe I killed Hugh Männer earlier.”
Hansel punches me for that. It doesn’t hurt and he didn’t even try that hard. “Hey!”
I laugh. “Would’ve been nice,” I smile at him.
“Maybe there would’ve only been one Meld.”
“Depends on when I killed him, but yes.”
“And maybe I would’ve had to bury you.”
I pause. And I suppose that’s true. Hansel has a longer lifespan. Most people do.
“It would’ve been terrible to bury you.”
I don’t respond. I just run my fingers over the grooves in my chestplate, the scratchy fabric of my cloak.
That’s what they buried me in. With my gloves and my weapons. They let my long silver hair go free and drape itself around my body. They did not move my hair over my face, where the acid scars ran deep. I looked sickly when I died, pale and hollow. I had a few wrinkles, around the eyes and mouth, but I didn’t look old. Even by human standards, I wasn’t that old.
“Yeah,” I finally say. “It would’ve been terrible.”
I feel bad for the people who have to replace my headstone about once a week. I know there’s a reservoir of them, I’ve seen it. And I feel bad for whoever has to carve my headstones too. How many times can they engrave ‘Beloved daughter, friend, and commander’ without wanting to exhume my body themself?
Someone tried once, with a bomb. They wanted my body for some sadistic reason. Luckily, the explosion didn’t even blast away three feet of dirt. It did destroy my headstone and three others, however. That was the one time my family’s resting places were disturbed.
Besides the sledgehammers and acid, people love leaving rotten flowers and food at my grave. They leave angry letters and dead animals.
I try to be nice to the other Luminaries. It's hard when some try to kill me. They can’t. It’s impossible. I don’t know why so many are trying. Did I really kill this many people? Indirectly. I think this is an important distinction. To make myself feel better.
“It’s rude to try and kill an old woman,” I tell one of them. Their punches left no marks. Fingers no bruises.
They spit at me, “You killed my nana.”
I reach out into the rays of Light and pull myself somewhere else.
Ürbloom is a common escape. It’s a better city than Boulderay ever was. I like to check in on Guild Head Meld. The people love her so much that she’s still in charge, all these years later. Her days are boring.
This is why I prefer following around the other Meld. The ‘original’ one, the older one. She stopped looking for her mother when I was about fifty. Most of her hair is gray by now and she’s weaker than before. Yet she still travels. And people love her.
“We looked like twins if I were half-elf,” I joked once, late in my life.
“Not if I were human?” She snorted.
“Being a half-elf is so much cooler.”
Meld rolled her eyes at that. She hates visiting my grave. She was born younger than me and was older when I died. It doesn’t really matter. She’s half-elf. Meant to live longer.
There are others I check up on. Mudd is always at his café in Ürbloom; Bart and his parents don’t have a band anymore, but he still puts on shows where and when he can; Gum-Gum enjoys his quaint life at the Orchardnage, and I have a nice chat with Dia every time I visit; Kyborg is in Boulderay, of course. He teaches the same things he did when he opened the Ahem Academy.
“The alliteration is nice,” Hansel had laughed when I asked his opinion on the place. “But I’m not sure why it’s me. The prosthetics, sure, but the hero stuff? I mean, I was the Quartermaster, but…” He just laughed some more.
Bo, Marcy, Leonard, and Ostin, all have their jobs at the Academy. They seem to enjoy it.
Bo does gardening wherever people let her when she can, or she helps the wheat farmers. Her fissures are the same color as that wheat, the golden color of the sun. I remember when they were purple, the same shade as the sangrianite she mined for hours on end. She’s happier now, and pours out a glass of my favorite liquor on my grave occasionally.
Marcy doesn’t do much at the temple anymore. She’s older and her hair is so gray. I miss the vibrant red. She does house calls throughout Boulderay, never letting anyone pay. When I can, I help with my minimal divine powers. (Fred helps too, when he’s there. He told me the day I met that he’s glad Marcy’s moved on. “I love her, really, but I love it more that she's happy. It’s sad it took her so long.” I nodded. The conversations between the two of us are awkward.)
Leonard helps the mayor with negotiations with Kaltburg. There aren’t too many, but he has proved himself vital for the ones that exist. (Felix likes standing over the mayor’s shoulder and judging. I don’t speak to him.) He’s a few years older than I was when I died and hopes to live a few more. That being said, I did die a little young. Over the years, enough people poisoned my food and drink with sangrianite to debilitate me. Assholes.
Ostin directs music for the schools’ theater programs. Either that or traveling with Bart to put on shows. He’s in Boulderay the least. But he tells everyone that this is his final year traveling. He’ll be staying home after this. (He doesn’t mention the fact that the others have been begging him to stay for almost three years now. “For Leonard, please.” Grief affects people differently.)
And the Everguards. They’re doing a great job or protecting the Briar Orbs. The people of Boulderay respect them. It’s a good thing I decided to switch to orange and change the insignia.
The ones who were there from early on like to pay their respects to me. They’re the only ones who bother with fresh items. Wildflowers picked on their way down to the temple, still-warm bread and those little lemon candies I liked, little slips of paper with blessings and prayers, a kind word.
I wish I said more of those when I were alive. Death is almost like a second chance. Maybe I can be a better person now than I ever was. Maybe.